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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28774371">Devil’s Bond</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyIians/pseuds/kyIians'>kyIians</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Football RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Lovers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Ramos and Pique are bonded, Serard, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, also in my drafts since 2020 publishing on a whim, gerard bullies sergio, gerard is whipped, i love this au so hopefully i did it some justice, idk how many chapters this is going to be, pique can’t control himself, sergio is angsty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28774371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyIians/pseuds/kyIians</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergio get’s dealt a bad hand in life when he finds himself bound with a homicidal soulbond to none other than his sworn enemy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gerard Piqué &amp; Sergio Ramos, Gerard Piqué/Sergio Ramos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Devil’s Bond</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Fucking shit, Pique!" Sergio groans, clutching his head, an earsplitting pain thrumming behind his temples. His vision blurs momentarily and he could hardly see behind his own rapid blinking, still the tall figure that collided with him, the culprit, could never go amiss. "You almost gave me a fucking concussion!"</p><p>Gerard doesn't say anything, just inspects his elbow with a wince, as though he's looking for a bruise, an injury, they both know doesn't exist. It's all an act, Sergio knows the game too well, knows Pique too well, not to recognise it and he wills the ringing in his head to stop, just for a second, so he can have his way with the cheating fucker. But it doesn't. Only gets stronger and louder, and Sergio hates what it suggests. Hates, even more, when he can suddenly feel a warm, all too familiar, substance trickle down his forehead. "Son of a bitch!" He yells, swiping at it furiously.</p><p>Both teams have swarmed around them by now, a disarray of petty arguments breaking out, Clásico's always on the edge of something more. Something violent. The fragility of the tension that chokes the air. How easily, how quickly, it shatters. Referee unsure who to sort out first, tries to calm down Casemiro, head to head with Vidal, to no avail. No one is really paying attention to Sergio on the floor. To Sergio and the angry bleed seeping down his face. But Gerard is awkwardly sat across him on the grass, still playing victim, eyes meeting his, not a trace of regret on his face.</p><p>"It's a fucking red!" Sergio can hear snippets of the quarrel above him, thinks surely Pique would get sent off for such a dirty tackle, but then a collective symphony of 'hijo de puta!'s and 'fucking bullshit!'s from his teammates tells him all he needs to know about what card was drawn, about what injustice was told and retold over and over again. Every Clasico. Every Barcelona game. It was a scandal.</p><p>Sergio, refusing to take it in his stride anymore, rises to his feet with conviction and heads straight for the one person he owes it all to. The person who always had something to say, something to disapprove of, to dislike, about Sergio, all the anger of years of having to deal with the nuisance that was Gerard Pique compact into one, seething outburst. He marches over and Pique straightens out to his feet, meeting him there nose to nose. Towering above him. A power play.</p><p>There's unspoken tension, a conflict, that has forever resided between them. Like a rift, of mutual understanding they could never reach. Sergio can't ever recall a moment where there wasn't an unease every time he was around Pique. They hated each other. And now, while he was staring up at Gerard with a heated determination, a potent desire to call him a plethora of obscene words, the tension is tenfold, and so strong he could swear it was physical. He finds himself buckling, in rage or pain, or something more terrifying, he couldn't differentiate. All he saw before him were those mocking blue eyes and that infuriatingly smug grin.</p><p>"Maybe if you cut your stupid fucking hair I could see where your head is." Gerard taunts with a low voice as he eyes the blood colouring the shorter's face, insult intended for Sergio's ears only. The childish back and forth that damned them.</p><p>Sergio doesn't really hear anything beyond that. Can't hear anything over the goddamn, shrill ringing in his ears. Eyes prickling with a distinct burn. He's lethargic. Wound stinging all of a sudden, a numbing pain hitting him like a ton of bricks, all at once, like a shot of whiskey or a baseball bat to the head. Those black dots that begin to crowd his vision, that prove too much for Sergio's overexerted body. All the blaring signs of shutting down.</p><p>And shut down he does. Limply toppling forward into the arms of no one but the enemy himself.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When he awakens the next morning, he recalls nothing past the rigorous shivering of his own body. For a moment all he felt was bitter, unforgiving cold. Nothing like he'd ever felt before, not even that time when he vacated in Switzerland one winter break and the temperature was in the negatives through night and day. It was so cold even his mind was sluggish. He could barely register where he was or why the temperature was so tortuously low. He could barely even feel his fingers, his limbs, all numbed by a relentless chill. He had half the mind to believe he'd even spent the night outside. Perhaps he'd lost more blood then he'd presumed. Or maybe they just left him there, lying unconscious on the pitch.</p><p>Much like tension, as slow and languid as his mind were in conjuring such thoughts, quick was the jerk reaction that broke out of him. He finds energy somewhere, adrenaline, probably rigid with ice like the rest of him. And it's enough to allow him to sit up, in what he slowly but surely recognises as his own bed. His own bedroom. He's visibly shivering, a pained look of confusion becoming him. It takes him a moment to look around, pointedly, one objective in mind. He's in his room, that much he is sure of if the violently colourful couch sitting at the end of his bed was any indication. He'd gotten the art piece (at least in his books) at one of those exclusive auctions he hauled ass to in the name of individuality. More than anything he liked the exclusivity of it. The fact that only one such couch was ever manufactured and he was the only person it belonged to. It also meant he'd recognise the hideous thing from a mile away. Once the certainty had settled, absurdity came along in abundance. He glanced down at himself, half expecting to see himself fully unclothed, comforter strewn somewhere on the bedside floor. Yet that wasn't the case. Instead, he found himself bundled, neck high, in two comforters, underneath which he wore possibly the thickest hoodie in his wardrobe, flannel pants and wool socks. Further ambiguity became of the situation when he realised he was dressed for the occasion, although to no avail. </p><p>Entirely perplexed, he listlessly reaches a palm to his forehead to check for a fever. The only possible explanation he, or any rational person he thinks, could come up with for this inexplicable cold. He almost imagines his breath materialise into steam before him, he was positively sure he was going insane. That or the ice age had decided to make a comeback. Just as he tries (and fails) to shimmy himself out from under the mountain of futile comforters, his door opens abruptly to reveal his brother, Rene, pacing with a concerned look tensing his shoulders.</p><p>"He's awake!" He yells as soon as his gaze falls on Sergio's upright posture. An exclamation to which the response was a clamour of limbs and bodies and suddenly half his team had filtered into his room, privacy be damned. They all begin to talk at him at once, his mind still too lethargic to sift and differentiate, let alone comprehend. But among the disorganisation Sergio thinks he hears someone ask if he's still cold and his ears perk up. And certainly, having not realised before, there was a hand on his shoulder, rubbing tenderly, with so much concern that Sergio recognises it to be no one else but Luka. And even more certainly, Luka is asking Sergio once again, if he's still cold, can see his teeth slightly chattering and his face devoid of any natural colour.</p><p>"Th-thermostat." He hardly whispers, the breath from his own mouth treacherously icy against his chapped lips. So cold, he can't help but assume his body was frozen inside out.</p><p>"I think he's trying to say something everyone shut up!" Luka's small voice turns mighty all of a sudden and renders silence in the room. Sergio breathes another cold breath, an unwelcome shiver accompanying.</p><p>"The thermos-stat." He tries again with a groan. "Turn <em>it</em> up."</p><p>"Seriously?" a disconcerted Rene asks with vigour. Soon enough Sergio feels his brother's hand against his forehead and he lets out a breath of resignation. "Sergio it's hotter than a fucking oven in here, the thermostat is dialled up all the way."</p><p>Sergio feels another shiver rack through him at the revelation. Blinking slowly to take it in. Dressed for the occasion, equipped for the situation, layers of clothing, units of electrical heating and yet. "What's happening to me?" He mumbles, sounding as scandalised as he could in a hibernating body.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Three days pass, three whole days and all Sergio feels is numb. He forgets warmth, even wishes upon just the mere memory of it as a solace. But everything is numb and grey and so cold it drives him hysterical. Three days were spent enlisting Madrid's best doctors, dozens fruitlessly prod and probe him in vain. He feels no pain where needles penetrated his skin, no warmth no matter the experiment and no surprise either when numerous doctors tell him what he knows already.</p><p>"But what can be causing his moderate hypothermia?" Rene asks, tone a hairsbreadth away from patent aggregation. "No one dared dial down the thermostat for the last three days, we've bundled him up in as many clothes and comforters as humanely possible without having him choke to death in his sleep. We've gorged him plump with warm liquids, I don't know what much else we can do?"</p><p>"I don't understand it either. His hypothermia is steady between moderate and severe, meaning he's somewhere between minutes away from hospitalisation or minutes away from being okay. It's not allowing much room for treatment. His vitals are fine and his body temp isn't worryingly low but low enough to be painful." The doctor says, Sergio loses his name somewhere between the raging confusion or the apathy, both symptoms of his proclaimed condition. "It's almost as though despite being a textbook case, it's rejecting all forms of textbook medicine.."</p><p>Sergio affords his brother a look of further confusion. "What do y-you mean?" He grinds his teeth to speak, wary not to chew at his own tongue.</p><p>"So it's incurable?" Rene prompts, visibly tensing.</p><p>"Not incurable, no.. I think it might be <em>divine</em>." The doctor, perhaps too deep in his own theory to notice the absurd stares he's earned by the brothers, rustles through his satchel in search for a book.</p><p>"Divine what does divine mean?" Rene asks, relentless in the case of his brother, his brother was not particularly a good ear, and even less so in dire times. If he didn't like what he heard, or wasn't the least bit intrigued by it, Sergio was sure he would've sent this doctor packing like the other dozen before him. The realisation offers a silver of hope for the bed-bound younger.</p><p>"Ah here it is!" He pulls a rather slim book from the depths of his satchel, propping it upright so Sergio can just about make the title. <strong><em>Anima Amte</em></strong> it reads in bold cursive.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The book was no page turner, that much was obvious by Sergio's dreaded reluctance to actually turn the pages. It was short, factual and forthright, nourishing him with knowledge no prior lessons had offered. As far as Anima Amte (or less dramatically, the science of soulbonds) went, Sergio couldn't say he was educated beyond the basics, couldn't say he was ever interested enough to take the extra mile. He pretty much knew what everyone else knew about soulmates, the fundamentals. Two souls, paired by the divine, matched by the heavens, destined, marked by each other's own utterances, a scribble on each of their skins, soulmarked for one another. A bond which can only be set in motion if the soulmark was spoken by the very person who put it there. Sergio knew the writing was somewhere on his skin, used to spend hours, a certain type of touch-starved teenager, searching the expanses of his skin for it, panicked when he couldn't find it anywhere, marred his skin in more unnatural ink, in a hundred other ways, to conceal it. He thought perhaps, or rather hoped, it was in a blind spot of his. Somewhere he just couldn't see it, and spared himself the thought that maybe it didn't exist at all.</p><p>The doctor tells him with conviction, that he thinks Sergio's soulbond was activated, triggered, but Sergio thinks it's absurd. Surely he would have felt something, noticed something, even if nothing more than a change in atmosphere. The doctor tells him soulmates typically felt pain, a sharp, constant burn where their soulmate's words marked skin, much alike the feeling of being branded by a hot iron, and that stretch of tissue would remain sore for days to come. Sergio recalls feeling no such thing but the doctor challenges him with "you were concussed, maybe your body just misunderstood which sensation to prioritise."</p><p>"So you think it happened to him during Clásico?" Rene questions, wide-eyed with bewilderment. "Are you sure?"</p><p>The doctor breathes a wind of unease, his brows furrowing, then declares "I'm almost certain."</p><p>"B-But that doesn't make s-sense." Sergio quivers, raising numb fingers, like icicles, to gesture to himself. "I don't have a s-soulmark. I've never seen it." The doctor looks nonplussed by this but Rene is quick to intervene.</p><p>"You've never seen it because it was on the back of your head, just below the hairline on the nape of his neck." He states to Sergio's surprise. Sergio stares stunned stupid at his brother, a reaction that would have been tenfold had Sergio possessed enough energy.</p><p>"And y-you never t-thought to tell m-me?" His teeth chatter harder than what has become the usual the past three days, and he knows it's down to the slight aggravation he can feel amidst a stomach full of ice.</p><p>"You never asked."</p><p>"Wh-at di-did it say?"</p><p>Rene takes a moment for recollection, a focused look on his face. "Something about cutting your hair? I think? Mom and I tried over and over to read it when it first appeared on his skin but the words were difficult to make out, they were impossibly camouflaged by your hair follicles." He reaches rather tenderly for Sergio's scalp, pulling his brother's head forward gently so as to inspect the nape underneath the bandage.</p><p>"It's <strong>gone</strong>." He whispers with bated breath. Sergio can feel his already slow-beating heart stop. The revelation felt like doomsday.</p><p>This was all too much to take in and too soon. Sergio wants to feel angry, at his brother for not thinking to tell him such a life-altering fact about himself, at his mother too for the same reason, or maybe, mostly, at himself for letting the bond be activated, for going through that, without realisation. He hated, perhaps now more than ever, how blurry with anger he gets, how it mists, makes him heedless and oblivious to everything else, narrows his focus to any other feeling. Maybe if he'd just not been so blinded with rage, with Pique, with the refs, with Barcelona, he might have seen.</p><p>Soulmates, soulbonds and marks and all the like were time sensitive to Sergio, if his age and marital status were any indication. They were all things he'd planned for his future, planned for after he'd had the career of his lifetime, after he'd filled a cabinet with trophies and carved an unforgettable legacy to his name. It's not like he doesn't want a soulmate. Not like he doesn't crave a touch that isn't his own nor anyone's he's ever encountered before, sometimes, periodically, he craves it so bad he thinks he might detonate, can't help the tears of want that wet his cheeks at night. Want in abandon, want that has no direction. And it's not like he doesn't feel the aches and sores, doesn't know that they don't belong to him. He knows, he feels, he wants. He knows his truemate is clumsy, gets hurt a lot, typically on the back or the legs. Sometimes Sergio would awake to bruises, black blue and red, painting his skin and he'd curse his truemate for their carelessness, would try to tend to the bruises, ice and massage them, hoping it would relay. Knowing it never does. These scarce interactions, the bruises he guiltily looked forward to, the dull pain in his back, they were all the reassurance Sergio could hold onto, consolation, comfort to stray him away from the notion that he wasn't mated. But just as his mother relentlessly reminded Sergio, God had a timing of his own, and no matter how obstinate he was in his own plans, heavens destiny for him would always prevail.</p><p>Yet that didn't mean Sergio couldn't still be angry at God's will, and angry was understatement for how he felt about the irony of finding his truemate at a Clásico of all places.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The doctor, Sergio still hadn't caught his name, decided to focus the short reserves of his energy elsewhere, leaves him with a mantra to dwell on. Sergio finds himself doing just that on the chartered plane he takes to Barcelona to accompany his team (most likely from the bench) on their away fixture against Espanyol. He's still lethargic, still confused and freezing, but where the cold is relentless in its harrowing, so is Sergio's resolution in persevering. Sergio loves his job, more than anything he prizes it, perhaps even unapologetically above his soulbond, so the mere thought of losing it, or lacking in it, is enough grind his gears, moderate hypothermia or not. But the doctor offers Sergio a silver of hope, a promise of something he didn't realise was second to none to him until it was taken from him.</p><p>A <strong>promise</strong> of warmth.</p><p>He tells Sergio of a case he'd studied a while back, the rarity of it and how there was only one such case, dating back to the 90's. Of a soulbond that showed itself through temperature. How it manipulated it (and soulbonds can sometimes be ironically unforgiving that way) so much so that without the touch of the other, one of the pair was rendered comatose with severe hypothermia. The doctor neglects to tell him much after that, thinks Sergio doesn't catch how he'd purposely omitted the remainder of that story, but he leaves Sergio with words that were supposedly also told to the couple from the case and those words chisel themselves into Sergio's mind like a tattoo.</p><p>'<em>Let warmth be your guide then honesty shall be your relief.</em>'</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Barcelona is warm. At least warmer than Madrid, and Sergio can't bring his fingers to stop clicking back and forth between the two tabs he has open comparing Barcelona and Madrid's weather. The bold 16°C plastered on both search pages does nothing but further Sergio's already monumental confusion. Barcelona is warm, not enough to keep him from shivering or keep his teeth from chattering, but enough for warmth to tickle his nostrils when he inhales. Enough for it to be the only thing he feels. With the sudden warmth he feels a new outpour of energy, flusters, at the thought of no longer being bed-bound. Goes as far as even imagining, with a premature optimism, himself play for the club tonight.</p><p>He marvels at the sights from the car window, as though he'd never seen the city, as though he hadn't found it mundane with a certain, antagonistic vitriol not a week ago. His eyes seemed to gleam against the clouded sun, the longer he stared, the more he felt a warped sense of newfound affection overcoming him. The pathetically satirical nature of the situation did not go amiss on Sergio. He knew it was ironic, he knew it should anger him so much so, first finding his soulmate at a Clásico and now the nail in the coffin, finding warmth in enemy territory. But when he closed his eyes against the air and when he opened the car window, when he sucked in the air as if nothing had ever been so sweet, felt it like silk against his cold skin, leaving an angry trail of goosebumps in its wake, he couldn't bring himself to be angry.</p><p>He spends most of the morning caught up in discussions and examinations of his wellbeing with medical staff and fitness personnel. There seemed to be a consensus amongst them, upon just the mere sight of him, that he was unfit to play tonight's game and no amount of protest or pleading would see Sergio on that starting eleven later that day. Sergio is a little grumpy with their decision, always opts for the kicked puppy response when he's told to sit one out, and although he swears he feels better, every now and then a small shiver would rack his body and give him away. He's smart enough to realise he might still be drunk and slightly heady on the newfound warmth, that it was like a shot of tequila to lifelong sobriety, like oil to stiff gears and cogs, a high, with an inevitable come down. He decides though, that there is no point selling it short while it remains his, he hasn't felt warm in so long he can't find it in him to dwell on the repercussions.</p><p>So he sits out the game, spends it on the bench alongside Carvajal and Mariano, shouting with fervour every now and so, in happiness when Varane volleys it to the back of the net, and in frustration at every other trivial inconvenience. He's animated, more than usual when he spends a game on the bench, and Carvajal persistently checks up on him, eyes him weird and eventually sneaks a palm up to feel his temperature. Sergio blames it on the warmth, on his soulmate, on Barcelona, teetering only fleetingly on the thought of how thundering the comedown was set to be. It was only moments before the half-time whistle that he feels it. A dull pain in his ankle, throbbing, but only slightly, and he bends down to peel at his sock, the bittersweet familiarity of the ache prepares him for the bruise he already knows is blossoming there. The bruise that doesn't belong to him. The whistle blows and soon both teams are filing down the tunnels for the half-time break, benches emptying as they followed suit.</p><p>"You're limping." Marcelo points out from behind him, the afterthought sounding accusatory.</p><p>"I am?" He peers down at his own feet, notices how he's unconsciously avoiding putting pressure on it, twists his mouth gingerly at the realisation. "Oh, I am."</p><p>"Hurt it on the way here or something?" He prompts an explanation out of Sergio as they both round the corner to their designated away team dressing room.</p><p>"Probably just a knock, you know how those are easy to miss." He justifies with a forced laugh.</p><p>Sergio thankfully loses him once their conversation is drowned out by the lively racket of a winning dressing room, and he feels relief but also shame. Sergio had been the first person Marcelo sought out when he found his soulmate, sure they were younger then, and Marcelo was a little bit too much of everything, but most of all frightened and afraid and Sergio was there for him, ironically talked him through it with a level head, as though he were bonded ten long years. Yet here he was evasively circumventing telling Marcelo, telling anyone, that the cold he feels in his bones, the bruises that decorate his skin with colours, were all the doing of his soulmate. Realises with a gnawing pit of guilt, as he sets down on the bench, that he is also frightened, even more so knowing he drew the short stick of some sick, homicidal soulbond.</p><p>Not long later, they're two up against Espanyol and Sergio is elated, Ferland receives a red card in the eightieth minute and Real Madrid leave Barcelona drunk on the sweet taste of victory. It's on the flight home that someone yells out the result of Barcelona's game against Granada. Not ten minutes away from where Real Madrid had dominated the RCDE stadium, all was level at the Camp Nou when the full time whistle blew. Gerard Pique had nicked his ankle and came off limping at half-time, and the further away they got from Barcelona the more violently Sergio shivered. Cold, like icy slush replacing the blood running through his veins.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The next time Sergio feels warmth thaw at the cold of his skin, he's at Iker's thirty fifth birthday gala. It had been a couple weeks since they'd played Espanyol, since he'd last felt warmth of a similar degree and Sergio could easily classify the weeks between as the worst period of his career. Talks of his decline were rampant on media platforms, he could barely play thirty minutes without needing substitution, couldn't take on a challenge without obtaining an injury, talks of his departure, how he was getting visibly thinner, paler, withering. Everybody noticed. The looks of pity, confusion, suspicion weren't amiss. Everybody wanted to persuade an answer from him, why was this happening? Are you sick? Are you dying? Are you okay? And as frustrating as the questions were, nothing frustrated Sergio quite like not knowing the answers. All Sergio does know is that he's cold. Cold beyond imagination, cold beyond relief, so cold even his cries were dry, his body too low on fluid reserves to be wasteful. It felt like he was being held underwater in a frozen river, and those little snippets of warmth, in Barcelona and at Iker's gala, like finally emerging for oxygen.</p><p>He hadn't intended to come at first. Bed-bound, as usual, but Rene and Marcelo had gnawed his ears off about moving around to generate body heat, about not staying idle, not upsetting Iker. And it was really the last one that got him up on his numb feet shivering his way into a tux because upsetting Iker was something he'd promised never to do. He tries not to chew his tongue off the whole ride there, offers weak smiles when he's greeting guests and teammates alike and makes an effort to get two sips of champagne down without collapsing from brain-freeze. It was around twenty minutes after he'd arrived that he feels it. Like an arterial shot of undiluted adrenaline straight into the bloodstream. He first feels it against his skin, then in his stomach, and it's nothing like the warmth in Barcelona, rather, it was like the warmth generated by an electric heater. Superficial, hot. And it's so overwhelming, so sudden and so nauseating, it leaves Sergio dry heaving, racing to the nearest bathroom.</p><p>He doesn't throw up, can't, but the nausea washes over him anyway and he feels both gorged and starved at the same time. He furiously unties the bowtie around his neck, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt in an effort to find his breath. His grip is tight around the wash basin in front of him, trying to ground himself, the mirror on the wall mocking him, reflecting back to him an image he didn't quite recognise. One of sunken eyes, blanched skin and hollow cheeks, a portrait he would've never allowed himself to paint, a portrait painted by the doomed soulbond that condemned him.</p><p>He thinks he hears a stall door creak behind him, a tall figure crowding the corner of his vision against a different wash basin, the flush of tap water distinctly familiar in the background, but he's too disoriented to pay any of it attention. That was until a timbre, taunting voice sounded off the walls, echoing against the tiles, gift-wrapped with insult.</p><p>"What's with <em>you</em> Ramos?"</p><p>And Sergio recognises it immediately, turning his head slowly, sure there's an instinctive sour glare already on his face before he could even allocate the energy to form one.</p><p>He see's none other than Gerard Pique himself looming over the wash basin right next to his own, drying his hands with a paper towel, a messy brow furrowed at Sergio as his beady blue eyes wander the Andalusian in an almost derogatory way. He doesn't look concerned nor apologetic, just mocking, as always. As usual.</p><p>"I haven't t-the strength to deal with y-you right now Pique."</p><p>Gerard's brow falls, humorous glint disappearing entirely and suddenly Sergio sees something in him he couldn't recognise, something like a grey area, foreign, unfamiliar, not concern but a lot alike. "What's wrong with you?" He whispers after a beat of silence.</p><p>"I don't know." Sergio surrenders. A visage of fragile vulnerability, nothing like his former self would have ever revealed to who he considers his arch enemy.</p><p>Pique tosses the paper towel in a nearby bin, hesitant, like he's biting his tongue on what Sergio could only assume was most likely an insult, a jeer, unsolicited criticism. There's silence between them, Gerard treading on egg shells, Sergio with no energy to carry the conversation. If that's even what it was. They never quite had those, so he wouldn't know. Sergio wants to put more thought into it, but he hasn't the time to deal with Pique and his minimal communication, too consumed on himself, on the sudden gut-churning heat and it's sure source, somewhere out there in the gala, oblivious to its consequences.</p><p>Pique steadily makes his way to the door without another word, unlike himself. He pauses however, at the door handle, turns back to Sergio, mocking once again. "Should probably tell Zizou to ease up on the dosage, <em>clearly</em> this one isn't working for you."</p><p>And he leaves Sergio with a rage in his belly, a fire fuelled by the logs Gerard can't help but throw at him. He wants to chase after him and strangle the insinuation back down his throat, he wants to scream this isn't the time for Gerard fucking Pique and his distasteful jokes, that Sergio was only holding on to his sanity, his life, with a pinky, and that could be the last thing Gerard had said to him. How preposterous that would be. How much Sergio wants his pity without ever realising.</p><p>He bites back a yell of frustration threatening to erupt, tears hot threatening to fall. He guesses he's been in the bathroom for a while dwelling on Gerard's words because it's not long before Marcelo bursts through the doors in search of him, relief washing over him when he finds Sergio slumped upright and not collapsed in some corner of the bathroom like he'd assumed. Marcelo aids him back out to the hall after a quick check of his temperature, guiding a staggering Sergio back to his seat, his brother.</p><p>The gala resumes without a hiccup, everyone seemingly blind to Sergio's persistent shivering. He's both hot and cold, and finds himself too flushed and too benumbed to explain this to a concerned Rene. He fears if he opens his mouth to even attempt articulation he might chip a tooth from how hard his teeth were chattering. Not soon after he's seated, Iker, along with a flurry of other guests, approach him, exchanging greetings and pointless chatter he has neither the energy nor the conviction to partake in. It is until Iker singles him out, Gerard looming by his side, the sight of him alone having Sergio fight back a dry gag, unwelcome like his insult, that he feels he is compelled to speak.</p><p>"I'm glad you made it, Rene told me how much of an effort it was to drag you out the house." Iker smiles at him, innocent mirth laced with worry.</p><p>"H-Happy Birthday." He grins despite himself, a little weary and conscious of how stupid his stutter must sound.</p><p>"Don't be silly Iker," Gerard interferes without invite. "You know he'd even rise from the grave for your favour."</p><p>Loud laughs surround them and Gerard looks proud of himself, as he always does. Sergio however doesn't even smile, too aware of the underlying ridicule behind that comment to find humour in it. How Gerard would never pass up an opportunity to make him look like a newbie seeking Iker's validation, how he always finds time to discredit everything Sergio's ever achieved, including Iker's affection. Sergio tries again to look past another insinuation made by Gerard today, one that made him seem like a love-struck teenager meeting his idol for the first time. And maybe Iker was his idol, and Gerard saw that, Sergio doesn't understand why it bothers him the slightest.</p><p>"No, but I really do have to thank you for coming, I know it's been quite a rough few months for you." The laughter dies down, and Sergio's beyond thankful to both Rene and Marcelo for practically bribing his presence at the gala, Iker's heartfelt gratitude enough to make it all worth it.</p>
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